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April 2012: Turkey with my mother and sister - 7 days in Istanbul, Oludeniz and Kas

It started with the idea of going to Greece for a week. After reading guide books cover to cover, deciding where I wanted to go, and reading forums, I realised that April just was not the time to visit, the inter-island ferries were just not up and running yet. and it was too expensive. Ah well. Another day.

I live in London, and my Mom (late forties) and sister (17) were visiting. After visiting Scotland (another trip report), we wanted to visit a beach, somewhere pretty, and preferably without visa requirements (we're Indian). Turkey was the answer. I booked tickets to and from Istanbul for 1 week in April, and the planning began!

Highlights: Topkapi Palace, Aya Sofiya, Gelato on Isteklal Cadesi, the view from hills in Oludeniz, learning how to dive in the cleanest waters in the mediterranean in Kas

Tips: The buses in Turkey are better than planes people are very nice, but then no country is free of idiots who ruin that impression

Agenda for the trip: a birthday gift to my sister was scuba diving lessons for the two of us (Open Water Diver).

Day 0: Preparation for our flight. A list minute check of the weather (should have done that earlier.. ) said the weather was in the early to late teens .. no sundresses !!!

Late night flight out from London via Pegasus airlines. Never in my life have i flown on something so life threatening. but well, cheap tickets (round trip for 3 for £450!)

Day 1: Arrival at 5 am. And the confusion begins! I had forgotten to take a printout of my hotel reservation, and the visa-on-arrival needed it! We spent a couple of hours in the scary looking immigration rooms while some nice guards tried to arrange for a laptop for me to find my tickets! (incidentally,turkish keyboards are a pain )

After 3 hours and some very helpful tips my mom received from the guards on how to get to the city, we ventured out of the airport. We took a bus to the ferry port and then a ferry to the main city.

Spent the morning in the gardens of Topkapi palace, the Tulip festival was on, and it was serene and beautiful. We had breakfast at a small restaurant near the garden before heading to the palace itself. It was beautiful, especially the treasury with the jewels and the diamonds. Though we had decided to spent very little time here, we ended up visiting almost all of it, including the Harem (extra entry fee).

Next up, Aya Sofiya, my personal favourite with beautiful lamps hanging from the ceiling. After that was the blue mosque, which was very pretty.

Next was the Basilica Cistern - a not very visited but very different experience. It is an underground cistern, and is both eerie and captivating at the same time, with lamps lighting up the columns and getting reflected in the water.

Lunch was at a nice sunny restaurant (i wish i remembered names) on our way to the grand bazaar (we walked). I found my new favourite drink - Apple Tea!

The grand bazaar is excellent for window shopping, photography and some token sovenir buys. After this it was to the main bus stop to catch an overnight bus to Oludeniz.

The buses in Turkey are very comfortable - including a steward, TV, music, and roomy seating. We all dozed off before waking up as we were reaching Oludeniz

We had called ahead to arrange for Para gliding, and our operator picked us up and we headed up the mountains. (my mom stayed at the beach). However, the wind was unfavourable and after waiting for an hour and admiring the views, we headed back down, slightly disappointed - this was supposed to be my favourite part of the trip!!!

The beach was beautiful though, and we lazed around, and even went Kayaking in the blue lagoon (a beautiful walk as well). The water was a bit cold, so swimming lasted about 5 minutes

We had arranged for a transfer to our hotel in Kas, and they came to pick us up in the evening. The ride was about 2 hours, and we settled into our new home for the next 4 days - Hotel Oreo, managed by the same people who would be arranging our open water diving course : Bougainville Diving Centre.

The hotel was really pretty, and we had a sea view triple room - not bad for £30 a night

Breakfast was next to the pool (which lay unused due to the weather) and was traditional Turkish (all you can eat bread, olives, tomatoes, cheese and eggs) and very filling

We headed to the dive center's office to get started on our course. Since the weather was awful, our day was going to be only classroom lessons. A few hours of lessons, and headed out for lunch the mom at the town square, and back for some more lessons.

Dinner was at our room (we had done some grocery shopping), as my sister and I finished studying and just generally chilled out together.

3 dives a day for 3 days. Tiring, fun and scary all at the same time! thankfully it was only the two of us learning, which was convenient. Our teacher was really understanding and nice whenever either of us got apprehensive. All the guys had a great sense of humour, and our days sun bathing and diving were perfection

In the meantime, my mother spent time exploring the brilliant walks around Kas. We would meet her for lunch on the mainland everyday, and tried out hidden treasures suggested by our teacher, including lunch in an old man's kitchen, as he prepared whatever he liked

Another highlight was dinner in a cozy living room as the daughter and mother prepared it in an open kitchen.

Day 7: Our final day in Kas was spent exploring the town (finally!) and relaxing. Our bus back to Istanbul was in the evening.

Day 8: We headed to Chora Church, which had beautiful architecture and lovely wall mosaics. It was also a little way out of old Istanbul, and we got a better feel of the city.

We then went to Dolmabahçe Palace, but did not realise that it was close on thursdays! that was quite a disappointment, but we had some tea and snacks on the Bosphorus, before heading towards istiklal caddesi.

We stopped at Taksem square and the Gelata Tower which was HUGE, and then walked up to the market area. the walk was along small winnding streets, and we finally reached Turkey's main shopping area!

I would definitely recommend the Gelato we had here (suggested by one of my Italian friends!) and we septn time walking around. The small side streets were definitely a highlight.

We then took a bus to the airport and were back in London late Thrusday night.

@annhig : well, the seats were older than buses in India, for one it was just really really run down, and looked very shaky. the turbulence was so-so. but the overall feeling i got was that the plane needed to be retired it was pegasus airlines, so it was turkish low cost

Thanks everyone for reading. Ive decided to start keeping track of all my holidays through trip reports. I think its such a great way to remember them, and also to help disseminate your ideas to everybody else.

@msteacher : yes, the three of us are very active, so we managed. it was a *bit* taxing though!

@kja: the tulips were beautiful. i didnt mention this in detail in the report, but the walk from the basilica cistern to grand bazaar was really nice as all shops had tulips outside and the streets looked very pretty

I have the address of the gelato shop written down somewhere - give me a couple of hours to get back to you please!

The lunch - I was very keen on having cig kofte, so he made that for us . It is basically kofte made out of really spicy raw meat - really really good but the spice might kill a western palate . He also made a simple dish of meat balls with fried eggs in the curry, which was surprisingly nice. Unfortunately i dont know what that was called.